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Trucking troubles

It is unfortunate that a local business which followed the rules in seeking a zoning change for land it owns along the Colorado River in Grand Junction has been left in a form of legal purgatory for nearly three years.

A Colorado Court of Appeals decision late last month ensures that the status of the Brady Trucking operation near 27 1/2 and C 1/2 roads will be in limbo for at least a few more months.

The appellate court remanded the case to district court, overturning decisions by Mesa County Chief District Judge David Bottger and Grand Junction City Clerk Stephanie Tuin.

Two years ago, Tuin ruled that citizens’ petitions seeking to overturn the Brady Trucking rezoning approved by the City Council had insufficient signatures. She rejected some of the signatures because they were notarized by a woman who also signed one of the petitions. Judge Bottger upheld her decision.

Bottger and Tuin both took an appropriately strict view of a state law proscribing when a notary public may notarize a document in which he or she has a personal interest. The Court of Appeals, which has much more leeway to interpret statutory law, offered a broader view of what is allowable, and its interpretation appears sensible.

We hope the case now can be taken up quickly in Bottger’s court, and resolved once and for all.